Bakken Oil Output Seen Growing With Drilling Improvements
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Improved drilling techniques will help oil production in the Williston Basin outpace steep well-decline rates, boosting output by more than 70 percent to 1.7 million barrels a day by 2020, according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd. energy analysts.
Producers such as Continental Resources Inc. are drilling wells faster and have had early success with downspacing, or increasing the number of wells per acre, said Jonathan Garrett, a Wood Mackenzie upstream analyst in Houston. They are also beginning to tap into more shale rock layers than the Bakken formation, which is part of the basin and has been the primary source in making North Dakota the U.S.’s biggest oil-producing state, after Texas.